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Frank L. Stanton
United States | ethnicity = Caucasian | movement = Early Southern Renaissance | death_date = January 7, 1927 | death_place = Atlanta, Georgia | notableworks = "Just Awearyin' for You", "Mighty Like a Rose", "Morning" | occupation = Poet, lyricist, columnist | religion = Methodist Episcopal Church, South | influences = Robert Burns, Joel Chandler Harris, James Whitcomb Riley | influenced = Ethelbert Nevin, Carrie Jacobs-Bond, James Whitcomb Riley}} Frank Lebby Stanton (February 22, 1857 - January 7, 1927)[http://www.bookrags.com/Frank_L._Stanton Stanton entry in the U.S. Dictionary of Literary Biography.] was an American poet and lyricist who became the state Poet Laureate of Georgia. He was also the initial columnist for the Atlanta Constitution Life Stanton was born in Charleston, South Carolina, to Valentine Stanton (a printer, Confederate soldier, and farmer) and his wife Catherine Rebecca (Parry), whose father owned a plantation on Kiaweh Island. From early childhood he was influenced by the hymns of Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley, and was reared in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. After starting school in Savannah, Georgia, Stanton found his education cut off by the American Civil War. At the age of 12 he became apprenticed to a printer, a position which allowed him to enter the newspaper business. In 1887 he met Leone Josey while he was working for the Smithville News; they married and, in 1888, moved to Rome, Georgia, where Stanton had received an offer from John Temple Graves to serve as night editor for the Rome Tribune. With encouragement from Joel Chandler Harris, Stanton in 1889 switched to the Atlanta Constitution (where for a few months he worked for Henry W. Grady prior to Grady's death), and began to focus more on writing editorials and columns, a newspaper role which he filled from then until Stanton's death in 1927.Harris and Stanton shared an office on the fifth floor of the Atlanta Constitution 's building. Visitors to that office included Richard Malcolm Johnson, Hamlin Garland, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Paul Hamilton Hayne, Charles A. Dana, Joaquin Miller, James Ryder Randall, Samuel Minturn Peck, Will Hamilton Hayne, Fred Emerson Brooks, James Whitcomb Riley (whom Stanton referred to as "Jim"), and Major Charles William Hubner. For further information on Hubner see the Oglethorpe University Hubner site. Stanton's writing became quite popular and assiduously read. His column News from Billville (later Up from Georgia) forms the basis for claims that he was even the prototype for American newspaper columnists.Commentary on Stanton by America.net. Stanton died, aged 69, in Atlanta, Georgia. He and his wife were survived by their children — Marcelle Stanton Megahee and Frank Lebby Stanton Jr. Writing Verse Frank Lebby Stanton's verse is marked by simplicity and charm as well as sentimentality, which was then en vogue. His poems include a number which he wrote in dialect, a challenge for which he had special knack, such as "Mighty Lak a Rose" (which was set to music by Ethelbert Nevin 1862-1901). The music for "A Plantation Ditty" (first line "De gray owl sing fum de chimbly top") by Stanton was composed by Sidney Homer.Harry Colin Thorpe, "The Songs of Sidney Homer" in Musical Quarterly, Vol. XVII (1931), pp. 47-73. Several of Stanton's ballads were set to music by Oley Speaks.See the list in the Speaks article in the Dutch Wikipedia. Possibly Stanton's most successful hit in popular music was his lyrics for the wildly selling 1901 parlor song "Just Awearyin' for You" for which Carrie Jacobs-Bond provided the familiar tune.Stanton information on Recmusic.org, which source also indicates that Nevin provided tunes for other Stanton poems including "Necklace of Love" (a.k.a. "No Rubies of Red for My Lady") and "Sleeping and Dreaming"; see also RecMusic's Ethelbert Nevin site. Stanton's "Just Awearyin' for You" lyrics were also matched by composer Harry T. Burleigh in 1906, but Burleigh's tune never gained the currency of the one by Jacobs-Bond. See Professor De Lerma's essay Henry "Harry" T. Burleigh (1866-1949): African American Composer, Arranger & Baritone" which notes the following tune for "Just Awearyin' for You" by African-American composer Harry T. Burleigh: ::Just a-wearying for you, for medium voice & piano. New York: William Maxwell, 1906. 6p. Text: Frank L. Stanton. Library: Library of Congress. "Linger Not" and "Until God's Day" are two other songs on which Stanton and Jacobs-Bond collaborated. Productivity According to the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), Stanton's writings include 171 items in 309 publications in 3 languages and 1,483 library holdings" (OCLC WorldCat hits).WorldCat Identities:Stanton, Frank Lebby 1857-1927 Collections of his work are listed by Connecticut State Library,Connecticut State Library 7lSeW. Valdosta State University,[http://www.valdosta.edu/library/find/arch/unioncatalog/vsu/Georgia_Literature.html Marcelle Stanton Megahee's compilation Just from Georgia.] University of Rochester (Eastman School of Music),Stanton in UR Research. and Music Australia.Stanton in Music Australia's "Various Composers" category. See also "A Happy Philosopher" (Stanton poem to A. J. Chase, with a note by Chase) and Stanton in the Old Poetry site. On many occasions, leading to his selection as poet laureate, Stanton was called on to furnish poetry for occasions of state, including the opening of Atlanta's Cotton States and International Exposition (1895).Although Stanton was there and shared the dais with Booker T. Washington, his poem was read by Albert Howell. See "South's New Epoch" article from the New York World, 1895 September 18, in the Papers of Booker T. Washington 1895-1898, pp. 3-15 (esp. pp. 7, 14n-15n). Stanton's "lengthy dedicatory ode" had "Behold to-day the meeting of the lands" as its first line. Booker T. Washington's speech on the occasion (see "Atlanta Exposition") is considered one of the most prominent addresses in African American history and is often cited in the development of the then-unfolding disagreement between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. On 1916 February 23, the day after Stanton's 59th birthday, public schools throughout Georgia held commemorations of his achievements. Walker, in appointing Stanton Georgia's poet laureate, stated that no one had ever previously been appointed poet laureate of any southern state.Walker also used the phrase "the Frank Lebby Stanton of Indiana" to describe James Whitcomb Riley. " and Carrie Jacobs-Bond the music."Just Awearyin' for You" was published by Carrie Jacobs-Bond & Son in 1901 as part of Seven Songs as Unpretentious as the Wild Rose. A dedicatory phrase "To F.B." atop the musical score inside is Jacobs-Bond's commemoration of her late second husband, Frederic Bond. The song has been widely recorded, including by Paul Robeson. In the first edition's frontispiece, credit to Stanton is missing. He was often remiss in protecting his work, and only after publication did Jacobs-Bond become aware of Stanton's authorship of what had been printed as an anonymous poem by a Chicago newspaper.The poem appears in Stanton's Songs of the Soil, published 1894 in New York by D. Appleton & Company, which owned the copyright. Stanton had originally published the poem in the Atlanta Constitution. Stanton's name was added to the score, and Jacobs-Bond amicably began paying him a revenue stream which became his most lucrative source of royalties.Max Morath, I Love You Truly: A Biographical Novel Based on the Life of Carrie Jacobs-Bond (New York: iUniverse, 2008), ISBN 978-0-595-53017-5, pp. 14-17, narrates that Stanton made "a hundred times" (p. 16) more on his poem combined with Jacobs-Bond's tune than on the rest of Songs of the Soil combined.]] Recognition Stanton was appointed the first poet laureate of the State of Georgia by Governor Clifford Walker in 1925, a post which he held until his death.Biographical information with Stanton's "Keep a-Goin'" poem. For further information see Bookrags.com essay on Stanton (requires fee). Stanton has been frequently compared with Indiana's James Whitcomb Riley or called "the James Whitcomb Riley of the South";' Stanton and Riley were close friends who frequently traded poetic ideas. Both Riley and Stanton have likewise been compared with Robert Burns. Although Stanton frequently wrote in the dialect of black southerners and poor whites, he was an opponent of the less-admirable aspects (such as lynching) of the culture in which he lived, and he tended to be compatible in philosophy with the southern progressivism of his employer, the ''Atlanta Constitution, for which he wrote editorials. These and other characteristics of Stanton are well elaborated in the scholarly essays on him by Francis J. BoshaBosha wrote the Stanton, Frank Lebby, article which appears in American National Biography, Vol. 20, ed. John A. Garraty & Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), ISBN 0-19-512799-4, pp. 565-566. and Bruce M. Swain.Bruce M. Swain, "Frank L. Stanton" in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 25, ed. Perry J. Ashley (Detroit, MI: Bruccoli Clark / Gale Research, 1984), ISBN 0-8103-1704-4, pp. 262-268. See also Wightman F. Melton, Frank Lebby Stanton: Georgia's First Poet Laureate (Atlanta: Georgia State Department of Education, 1938), ASIN B000EQUSUM, 42 pp. 's tune for "Mighty Lak' a Rose" for which Stanton wrote the lyrics. The dialect title means (approximately) "very much like a rose" and is supposedly sung by a mother to her young son. The first line, by which the opus is occasionally known, is "Sweetest li'l feller" (sweetest little fellow).]] Shortly after his death Stanton was commemorated in the naming of the Frank Lebby Stanton Elementary School, which, after the redesignation of a street name for its eponym still unborn at the time of Stanton's death, is at 1625 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Atlanta.F. L. Stanton School site. Five items by Stanton appear in Edmund Clarence Stedman's American Anthology 1787-1900, published in 1900:Bartleby for Stedman 1286, Stedman 1287, Stedman 1288, Stedman 1289,Bartleby for Stedman 1290. * "One Country" (Stedman's Item 1286) * "A Plantation Ditty" (Stedman's Item 1287) * "The Graveyard Rabbit" (Stedman's Item 1288) * "The Mocking-Bird" (Stedman's Item 1289) * "A Little Way" (Stedman's Item 1290) One of Stanton's works most widely quoted during his lifetime was a quatrain titled "This World";''' it is enscribed on his tombstone in Atlanta's Westview Cemetery: :This world we're a'livin' in :Is mighty hard to beat. :You get a thorn with every rose. :But ain't the roses sweet? Musical settings of his poetry Stanton collaborated with African American composer Harry Thacker Burleigh in the sheet music for his poem "Jean" (Burleigh composed and harmonized the tune)."Jean" (w. Frank Lebby Stanton m. H. T. Burleigh), dedicated to Mrs. James Speyer, Item 12241, high voice in E-flat (Philadelphia: Theodore Presser Company, 1914). American composers of art songs such as Ethelbert Nevin and Carrie Jacobs Bond wrote songs to his verses; composer Oley Speaks also set at least 4 of his poems to music: "The Hills of Dawn", "In Maytime", "Morning", and "When Mabel Sings". Joshua Emdon set his famous "Keep-A' Goin'!". See also *List of U.S. poets References Notes External links ;Poems *Frank L. Stanton at PoemHunter (21 poems) ;Audio / video * "Morning" w. Frank Lebby Stanton & m. Oley Speaks as sung by Webster Booth * "Morning" w. Frank Lebby Stanton & m. Oley Speaks as sung by Tessa Folch * "Morning" w. Frank Lebby Stanton & m. Oley Speaks as sung by Jan Peerce * "Morning" w. Frank Lebby Stanton & m. Oley Speaks as sung by Eleanor Steber * "Morning" w. Frank Lebby Stanton & m. Oley Speaks as sung by Richard Tucker ;Books *Frank L. Stanton at Amazon.com ;About * Frank L. Stanton at IMDb Category:1857 births Category:1927 deaths Category:American columnists Category:American country singer-songwriters Category:American essayists Category:American lyricists Category:American Methodists Category:American newspaper editors Category:American poets Category:American songwriters Category:Blackface minstrel songwriters Category:Commentators Category:History of Atlanta, Georgia Category:James Whitcomb Riley Category:Media in Atlanta, Georgia Category:19th-century American newspaper editors Category:Paul Robeson Category:People from Atlanta, Georgia Category:People from Charleston, South Carolina Category:People from Savannah, Georgia Category:Poets Laureate of Georgia Category:Writers from Georgia (U.S. state)